Buddhist meditation center in Sweden

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Jonas E, modified 1 Year ago at 3/14/23 9:28 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 3/13/23 2:25 PM

Buddhist meditation center in Sweden

Posts: 92 Join Date: 2/28/15 Recent Posts
I filled this form for a buddhist meditation center in Sweden.


  • Name of Center: Wat Dalarnavanaram

  • Address: Ulvshyttan 63, 781 96 Borlänge, Sweden

  • Phone Number: (+46) 0243-195 80, (+46) 076-269 56 97

  • Website: https: https://watdalarna.se

  • Contact Email: watdalarna@gmail.com

  • Tradition(s): Buddhawajana

  • Technique(s): Buddhawajana; As the buddha spoke; Mindfulness of breathing, etc.

  • Teacher(s): The abbot refer to the Buddha as the teacher, and also give his guidence.

  • Cost: Donation

  • Accommodations: Standard beds, men and wimmen separated dorms

  • Facilities: A big house with one dhamma hall, dormitories for total 50 people, dining room, kitchen, toilets, showers, etc.

  • Physical Setting: Quiet! Most of the time, in weekends there tend to come people to give food and necessities. In the holidays such as Kathina it comes a lot of people. But there is always space if you want to practice on your won. Nature and forest is just outdoors.

  • Food (Vegetarian/Vegan/etc.): Any food donated, mostly thai food. Talk to the monk about routines.

  • Retreat Length(s): Any time. Talk to the monk and be clear with your perspective. Why are you coming?

  • Typical Schedule: Talk to the monk.

  • Issues of Taboos around attainment, real practice, disclosing insights, etc.: Strict teachings of the buddha, encouraged open discussion on the teachings in Swedish, English and Thai (Swedish and English was understandable but sometimes difficult.)

  • Issues of Rites/Rituals: Kindly met, appreciated when joining chanting and bowing. I think it is individual how you understand this. If you are not sure you can allways talk to the teacher or to leave some space for your perspective and ease by feeling it in.

  • Issues of Proper Dress: None, in my experience. Talk to the monk if you are concerned.

  • Issues of Etiquette: 5 precepts

  • Issues of Language: Pāli, Thai, Swedish, English. Swedish and English is not completely fluent by the monks, but understandable. Otherwise if something is not clear, you can read the books.

  • Health Issues: Food is verry broad, from fried food and much sugar, meat, to fresh leafes and bitter vegetables etc. The fire safety might be lacking, if you worry it is better to talk about it and to check escape routes. On another issue when I was having something like a psychotic breakdown I felt the munk and the people there had difficult to know what was happening to me and what to do, I had difficult to speak. I probably looked calm on the outside. Now afterwards I think the psychosis just had to go away, as it did. The monk just observed me where I was sitting. Such situations are allways difficult I think, but I felt I could have been understood better. Or was I making up the difficult drama my self? And that nothing could be done? I don't know, I think in a situation where people are confused, it is good to show compassion and be present so that one can feal the support. The psychosis was triggered by sleeping problems. What the sleeping problems was triggered by is to me unclear, maybe DN, stress. Laypeople at the temple helped me to the hospital on my request.

  • Logistical Issues: There is not a lot of space in the dormitories, but it works. With a calm mind, no problem. If you have claustrophobia, I don’t know. There are other rooms to sleep in also if you talk to the monk; in case of claustrophobia or something I don’t know.

  • Strengths: Preserve the words of the Buddha

  • Weaknesses: Adherence to dogma

  • Other Comments: I think this is a great place if you look for a quiet place with lots of space, close to nature. If you want support from a schedule in a retreat style that is often offered by retreat centers and monasteries, I think you do better by contacting the temple/abbot and explain your view. Sometime there is formal retreats offered.

  • Overall Impression: Buddhawajana

  • Worthy of recommendation on the Dharma Overground? Not like MBMC or Goenka in my experience, with that intence sitting and walking meditation. Much softer, I did sitting meditation 3-7 hours a day. Chanting in group. Chores 1-3 hours a day. I came to insight, I came to better samadhi.

  • Name of Person Reviewing the Center: Jonas Eriksson
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Jonas E, modified 1 Year ago at 3/14/23 8:58 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 3/14/23 8:58 AM

RE: Buddhist meditation center in Sweden

Posts: 92 Join Date: 2/28/15 Recent Posts
Could someone help me to add this meditation center to the wiki?

P.S
When I studied the word tathāgata, I found that it was the only word that Buddhaghosa was doubtful of its origin, it seemed to be some sort of a key word used also before the buddha by the people, refering to an enlightened being, an arahat. Buddha used this word to refer to him self as it appears in the Pali canon, to refer to his impermanent being I suppose, what else? There are several translations of it, by example: thus come, thus gone. This is a great teaching to understand how everything is impermanent to its core. There is nothing to hold on to.

Some interesting information I just found at https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/jsall-2016-0001/html, related to Buddhawajana:

One of the big mysteries of Buddhism is the language the Buddha spoke and what his actual words were. This is a question which has preoccupied Buddhist scholars for centuries. As is well known, Buddhaghosa equated Pāli (P) with Māgadhī,[1] but we know that Pāli is a composite dialect, and although it contains elements of what is probably an eastern dialect that the Buddha may have spoken, it is nevertheless not an “original language of Buddhism” but a translation of something earlier. It is usually characterized as a western dialect, but in fact, if closely analysed, it contains elements of both eastern, western, and northwestern dialects – it is a mixed language created by monks, normalized for religious purposes

A common epithet of the Buddha like tathāgata (usually translated ‘thus come’=tathā-āgata or ‘thus gone’=tathā-gata), for example, appears in AMg as tahāgaya, where the aspirated stop > aspirate only and the intervocalic stop > glide. This was probably also close to the koine form, as the characteristic dialect differences have been removed and it is up to the hearer to replace the aspirate and glide with the relevant phoneme from his/her dialect. So whether one pronounced it tathāgata, tathāgada, tathāgasa, tahāgaya, etc., in one’s own dialect, the simplified koine form (tahāgaya or tahāga’a; ’= > Ø) would be a common denominator of all forms, that is the most reduced form from which all can be derived. The latter part of this compound -gaya could of course point to another meaning altogether (with the intervocalic -y- taken as a glide phoneme, substituted for a weakened stop), as Buddhaghosa theorizes in his commentary, i.e. -āgado, ‘speech’ (tatha-āgada, ‘true speech’), or -agada, (tatha-agada, ‘true medicine’; Bodhi 2007 [1978]: 328–29). The compound tathāgata is a reconstruction, a translation and Sanskritization of an underlying form, which is only imperfectly understood. It is surprising how little we know about one of the most common words of Buddhism; some scholars have even suggested that the compound is borrowed from a non IA source (Schayer 1935: 211–213; Thomas 1937: 186–187).

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